Carl Wilson Interview - Let's Talk about Love

Carl Wilson added his name to short list of great pop music critics, alongside the likes of Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau, with the release of his book Let's Talk About Love - A Journey to the End of Taste. Originally issued as part of the 33 1/3 book series, which mainly consists of fairly hagiographic treatments of classic rock albums, Wilson went another direction and chose to review an album he hated. It turned out to be a masterstroke, because he's able to use the space to meditate on questions of taste, good and bad, high and low, his own and others. He constantly raises questions in the readers mind, not directly but through his treatment of the subject, and then proceeds to address them almost as they appear. In other words, he has completely thought his way through the question of taste and though you may end up with different conclusions then he did, about taste or about Celine Dion, you have to credit him the thorough and entertaining take on his subjects. Below is a link to an audio recording of our conversation.